Outside Lands Oct-Dec 2022

Outside Lands

San Francisco History from Western Neighborhoods Project

Volume 18, No.4 Oct–Dec 2022

Coming right up

Outside Lands

History from Western Neighborhoods Project (Previously issued as SF West History)

Oct-Dec 2022: Volume 18, Number 4

editor: Chelsea Sellin

graphic designer: Laura Macias

contributors: Richard Brandi, Steve Haines, Sharlene Hall, Paul Judge, Angus Macfarlane, Nicole Meldahl, Palma You

Board of Directors 2022

Arnold Woods, President Eva Laflamme, Vice President Kyrie Whitsett, Secretary Carissa Tonner, Treasurer Ed Anderson, Denise La Pointe, Nicole Smahlik, Vivian Tong

Staff: Nicole Meldahl, Chelsea Sellin

Advisory Board

Gretchen Hilyard, Woody LaBounty, Michael Maire Lange, Brady Lea, Jamie O’Keefe, Nate Tico, and Lorri Ungaretti

Western Neighborhoods Project 1617 Balboa Street San Francisco, CA 94121 Tel: 415/661-1000 Email: nicole@outsidelands.org Website: www.outsidelands.org facebook.com/outsidelands twitter.com/outsidelandz instagram.com/outsidelandz

Cover: Peter Finelli gives away ice cream, October 31, 1946. (Courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp14.3761)

Right: Photographers on Ocean Beach, circa 1910. (Marilyn Blaisdell Collection; courtesy of Molly Blaisdell / wnp70.0541)

© 2022 Western Neighborhoods Project. All rights reserved.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR’S

MESSAGE

Nicole Meldahl

The air is crisp and the heater kicks on automatically in my Sunset District Doelger most mornings now. Everything seems to slow down as fall turns to winter, only to speed up again for the holiday whirlwind. We at Western Neighborhoods Project are leaning into this with our new public programs schedule, which takes a break each year from November through February so that we can attend to the business of being a nonprofit.

That scheduled break is also so we, the hardworking history nerds who power WNP, can take care of ourselves and be present with the ones we love. Some folks have family, others have friend that substitute for blood relations, and the luckiest among us have both. I’ve lost more family than I have left but I feel so lucky to have all of you in my life, which is why Inside the Outside Lands gives space to the incredible volunteers that make up the core of our WNP family.

And we all have San Francisco; she is the tie that binds and this issue is a celebration of this bond. I love the west side because it feels like a small town where we all know one another. So many of you are still close with the kids you grew up with here; lifelong relationships that were cemented at gathering spots like Cabrillo Playground, which Paul Judge remembers in this issue’s Where in West S.F.?

Of course, these places and the neighborhoods have changed over time. The final oral history we’re featuring from Chinese in the Richmond, our collaboration with the Chinese Historical Society of America, illuminates the lives of Sharlene and Al Hall. The Halls ran pharmacies that provided more than mere prescriptions. They looked out for the most vulnerable in our community as friendly neighbors, which is what most corner pharmacies were like before the advent of monolithic chains. When I hear people decry what’s become of our city, what I hear is sorrow for the loss of these personal connections. Because these relationships prevent the daily transactions of living from being simply transactional.

Bonding with local merchants is so critical to feeling part of a community you can rely on. I often say the west side is where San Francisco comes to live because our streets are lined with stucco homes. Sure, they aren’t the Victorian icons that grace postcards, but many are over 100 years old now. Few people have done more to elevate these homes than Richard Brandi, whose book on residence parks, “Garden Neighborhoods of San Francisco,” is excerpted in this issue. That book is the perfect gift for your loved ones this holiday and we’re selling it for the lowest price possible.

But if you’re looking for something to do with family this season that doesn’t cost a dime, I recommend taking Angus Macfarlane’s article on renaming Stow Lake for a spin. Pass it around your living room and then lead your own history walk with a warm beverage. It’s the best way to jumpstart your appetite for all the delectable delights that I hope pass across your table this year.

They say home is where the heart is. At the risk of sounding corny, I think a more accurate phrasing is that home is where our history is. It’s certainly been a historic year for WNP, with over 14,000 people visiting The Museum at The Cliff. It’s hard to close the door on this shared experience, but if you donate to our Winter Appeal before year’s end (see The Last Word for details), we can remember it together as you sip cider out of an authentic Cliff House souvenir.

So, let me raise a glass to you all and say thank you for helping us build a Home for History that is able to host so many. And with that I’ll say goodnight to 2022. We wish you a warm and comforting holiday season and I can’t wait to see you, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in a brandnew year.

WHERE IN WEST S.F.?

By Paul Judge

Last issue’s 1940s photograph of Cabrillo Playground evoked memories among many who spent time in their youth at this (or other) neighborhood Recreation and Parks Department facilities. David Friedlander, Daniel Hollander, Kristine Poggioli, and Alan Thomas all sent responses.

Cabrillo Playground is located on the 800 block of its namesake street, between 38th and 39th Avenues. Construction began by at least 1932; the grand opening on May 22, 1938 revealed “a community clubhouse, tennis and volley ball courts, and a large play field…constructed at an approximate cost of $20,000.”1 At least some of that money came from the Works Progress Administration. San Francisco’s playgrounds greatly expanded in the 1930s, despite the financial limitations of the Depression.

Cabrillo was duplicated with four other playgrounds in the Central and Outer Richmond District: Rochambeau, Richmond, Argonne, and Fulton. They were intentionally located within a radius of reasonable walking or bicycling distance for residents. Each site was staffed by playground directors hired to engage children in recreational activities. Many were local college students, and they were adored by neighborhood kids. At Cabrillo, the director most fondly remembered – and highly regarded – was Roslyn “Roz” Tuska, followed by Don, and Norma Hamilton.

Some readers fondly recalled Cabrillo’s Tiny Tots preschool program. It provided socialization and skill-learning for children, and offered mothers the opportunity to meet other parents. Many more have childhood memories of spending all day at the playground, engaged with the play structures, court and field games, or indoors playing ping pong and board games. Some mastered Jacks or participated in Duncan YoYo competitions; others took classes in arts and crafts, ballet, folk dance, or puppet and doll making. For older kids, dances and parties were the attraction. Fields trips to cultural events, museums, Golden Gate Park, and pier fishing were offered. There were also team competitions between playgrounds; winners received medals and had their names and photos published in the newspaper.

Barbara Payne Wood recalls that “Roz and Don were the best directors. I remember going to a marbles tournament way out near the Bayshore. It was so far away I had no clue where I was! I was also in a basketball tournament at one of the Sunset playgrounds. In the 1950s girls’ sports weren’t given that much attention, so I always appreciated being able to compete.”

Ray Shanahan and his brother Jack remember Cabrillo as their go-to place every day during the summer months. “Even on the coldest and foggiest of days we would be there for hours…Each week we would have one planned excursion to the far off reaches of places like Tilden Park or Fairyland in Oakland. For a fee of .25 or .30 cents and a signed permission slip from our parent we could board the bus and bring a bag lunch with us…There was a 30’ high cyclone fence protecting the houses on the south side. There was an infamous kid named Marty Kelly that could kick a home run over the fence while playing kickball. For teenagers there were the Loop dances on Friday nights. These were also organized by Roz as she would chaperone the evenings and you never wanted to get on the wrong side of her.”

Cabrillo Playground tennis court and clubhouse, 1940s. (Courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp26.1544)

Charlie the History Poodle visits Cabrillo Playground. (Courtesy of Margaret Ostermann)

After closing hours and on Sundays, kids hopped Cabrillo’s fence to play pickup games. Without supervision, there was a measure of horsing around. Some took delight in climbing the clubhouse roof for errant tennis balls. Richard Rothman related a memory of seeing a kid’s underwear hanging high from a fence pole and deciding that “It wasn’t a good day to visit the playground.”

Cabrillo Playground was renovated in 2012-2013. The clubhouse was preserved and restored, the playground was modernized with safety features, and an outdoor, allweather ping pong table and new sitting area were added. Devi Joseph, who lives next door to the playground in her childhood home, shared how community residents banded together with input on the remodel. “The new playground is colorful, but it still retains its old feel.”

View west of Cabrillo Playground under construction, April 23, 1937. (Courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp26.1303)

1. “Cabrillo Park Opening Set,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 1938.

“Bachelor of Tiny Tots” diploma signed by Roslyn Tuska, January 29, 1958. (Courtesy of Joann Cristofani Cassidy)

Hall’s Pharmacy at 2300 Clement Street, with the old awning for Mario’s New Centre Pharmacy. (Courtesy of Sharlene Hall)

Sharlene Hall REMEMBERS

A 1996 Richmond ReView article celebrating the 30th anniversary of Hall’s Pharmacy included a picture-perfect description of Al and Sharlene Hall. “Al Hall is a swarthy, good-looking man with a salt-and-pepper beard and mustache, who wears his white pharmacist coat as though he were born with it. He always seems to have a smile in his eyes. Sharlene is more coiffed and elegant.”1

On November 4, 2020, Sharlene submitted written memories for Chinese in the Richmond, a collaboration between the Chinese Historical Society of America (CHSA) and Western Neighborhoods Project that illuminates the lives of Chinese Americans in San Francisco’s Richmond District. Palma You of CHSA then interviewed Sharlene on November 11, 2020.

When asked how the Richmond District impacted her life, Sharlene referenced her exposure to “so many different cultures. If I stayed in Chinatown, I'm sure our outlook may have been a little narrower because of the culture and the surroundings, but being out in the Richmond, we were exposed to so many different cultures and different ideas that people had. I think we're a lot more open. And because we were not discriminated against, we didn't feel that we needed to be, you know, just tightly knit together. It was really a great open feeling.”

EARLY YEARS IN SAN FRANCISCO

Sharlene and her late husband, Al, both grew up in Chinatown. Alfred D. Hall was born on April 25, 1935 to Lucy (Tom) and Bock Nom Hall at French Hospital in San Francisco. He and his two sisters grew up in a garden flat on Washington and Mason Streets. Their mother Lucy was born in San Francisco in 1907; their father Nom came to San Francisco from China at age 13. According to Sharlene, “He came with his father and then shortly after that his father died. So he put himself through school, graduated from pharmacy school, and then worked for differ-

ent pharmacies in Chinatown before he bought his own store at 868 Stockton Street on the corner of Clay Street.” Palma You notes that “He owned that from 1941 to 1964. Clay and Stockton is just down the block from the CHSA Museum.”

The fourth of seven children, Sharlene Low was born in a cold water flat “across the street from the Jackson Street car barn; 1050 Jackson between Mason and Taylor. There was a family doctor there that delivered me. Our family was considered a poor family…I grew up on Auburn Street between Jackson, Pacific, Mason and Taylor Streets.” Sharlene’s grandmother was born in Lone Pine, California; her mother, Daisy Ng, in Gilroy. She describes her father as “one of those fathers that came and went. So, my mother and grandmother and uncle raised all of us.” They ate at home except for special occasions and Sharlene hung out at the YMCA. “I almost drowned there trying to learn how to swim. I got dunked – I mean I lost whatever in the deep end and one of the lifeguards jumped in and saved me.” When asked if that was scary, Sharlene said “Oh yeah. I still don’t know how to swim.”

The Low family moved to Union and Larkin Streets around 1950. “So Swensen’s Ice Cream was my favorite. My mother’s favorite was the blueberry and mine was strawberry,” Sharlene remembers. After attending Jean Parker Elementary and Francisco Junior High, she went to George Washington High School on a business course. Five days a week she took the Polk Street bus and transferred to the Clement bus. “It was a very good school,” Sharlene states. “We were a pretty well-integrated school…We still had the half-year terms, so our class was at fall of 1953. We graduated in January.” One of her classmates was Johnny Mathis. “We were in choir together. So I got to know him a lot…It was always a good time. Miss Swanson, our teacher, was just a real nice woman, and was also a good – call it the Glee Club because it was all so happy.”

Sharlene recalls that “Growing up in the 1950s everybody knew each other from school, the YMCA, Cameron House club and the Presbyterian church. We hung out at On On Café, Tops Soda Fountain and some went to Chinese school. Our friends walked each other home after activities at church, into neighborhoods as far away as Nob Hill/Polk Street and North Beach.”

Al was educated at Commodore Stockton (where his mother was a teacher’s aide), Francisco Junior High, and Commerce High School, before attending UC San Francisco. He was a member of the Cherokees-YMCA club and the Cameron House youth program, from 1949 until early adulthood. It was at Cameron House – a social services organization for the city’s Chinese American community – that he reconnected with Sharlene, after the pair had met at Francisco Junior High. Sharlene told the Richmond ReView in 1996: “I thought he was a pretty nice guy.”2

RICHMOND ROOTS

1958 was a big year for Sharlene and Al. They married on June 21st, “one of ten couples in a summer-long flourish of showers, weddings and banquets that year.”3 Al also graduated from the UCSF School of Pharmacy and Sharlene remembers that he “started working for Mario Corsiglia at Mario’s New Centre Pharmacy, which was on 24th Avenue and Clement Street.” The New Centre Pharmacy dates back to at least 1909; that year’s city directory lists the address as 2302 Clement Street, and the proprietor as W.B. Crawford. By the late 1940s, the address shifted to 2300 Clement and became associated with the name Charles Corsiglia. His brother, Mario “Doc” Corsiglia, took over the pharmacy in the mid-1950s, likely after Charles’s death in 1954. Coincidentally, the same 1955 advertisement in which Mario’s name first appears with the New Centre Pharmacy also lists Nom Hall’s pharmacy in Chinatown.

Newlyweds Al and Sharlene lived on the east side until 1964, when they moved to the edge of the Richmond. For 45 years, the Halls resided at 333 Spruce Street between Sacramento and Clay. As Sharlene remembers, “we didn’t move until we

had the children…There were all pretty much families that lived around the neighborhood. Up on Clay Street was the richer part. Our building was a three-unit building. We bought the place with two other families because we were all looking for a place to buy, but we couldn’t buy anything by ourselves. So, we pooled our money together and bought this threeunit building. That was the only way we could afford it.”

Unlike the resistance that earlier Chinese American families experienced when moving to the Richmond, Sharlene states they had no problem. “At that time there was no bias. No, that neighborhood was – our block was integrated. We had a huge corner across the street that was Black owned. So, our neighborhood across the street had Japanese and Whites. In our unit were all three Chinese families.” But the Halls did have trouble renting an apartment before they were married. “We

Nom Hall in his pharmacy at 868 Stockton Street. (Courtesy of Sharlene Hall)

“Part of what I like about it is people are not just customers here. They’re like friends and family.”

had an appointment in the Panhandle area, and we went to ring the doorbell and told him who we were. ‘Sorry, it’s rented.’ So we knew at that point that they didn’t like the idea of renting to an Asian couple. But that really is about the only time we’ve experienced any racial discrimination. I never forgot that.”

Sharlene and Al maintained strong connections with Chinatown. They returned to the old neighborhood to see family and attend Cameron House and the Chinese Presbyterian Church, where their children attended day camp and church school. “We still stayed with most of our activities in Chinatown” Sharlene says, but she also remembers many Richmond District businesses. “There was a Japanese catering restaurant called William & Mary. They were the Kimuras and they were in the same block as our pharmacy…There was a Japanese TV repair store across the street. Bill’s Place was a small hamburger joint where Gordo’s is now [2252 Clement], before moving to Bill’s present location [2315 Clement]. Back then, Bill’s older sister, Honey, made the best tapioca pudding and Bill’s burgers were really big and juicy!”

The Halls frequented other local restaurants, like China West. “It’s where the BBQ or crêpe place is now,” Sharlene recalls. “I remember Jimmy Hom that owned it. They had the best lemon chicken because they brined their own lemons. It was really, really the best lemon chicken I ever tasted.” China West was located at 2332 Clement Street, the current home of PPQ Dungeness Island. Sharlene also mentions a Mandarin restaurant, “I can’t remember his name, but his dish that we liked the most was Ants Crawling Up the Tree.” Otherwise known as Ma Yi Shang Shu, the dish’s nickname refers to the way the ground meat clings to the glass noodles.

When Mario Corsiglia retired, Al bought the store from him in 1966, which he ran with Sharlene until 1998. She remembers that “When we first started our pharmacy – it was a pretty different, different ethnic groups. We had Italians, we had Russians, we had Chinese, we had Japanese: it was pretty integrated. Except I don’t think we had any Black families out in that area right then. And there were a lot of Jewish people, a lot of influx of Russians. So I learned how to speak some Russian a little bit running the store because, a lot of times they would have to know how to take their medicine. One of our help was a young Russian girl that was really very helpful in dealing with customers. She also taught us some of the phrases that we needed to know about how to take medicine and tell the patients…So I got to know all the customers as well and it was like just being friends with people, and it was very open.”

Sharlene relates a standout memory from their early years. “In the first year that we were open, we had an automobile accident at 2300 Clement where a car drove into our store. The 24th Avenue side where we had our magazine rack and the comic books. And maybe a half hour prior to that there was a little kid that was sitting there reading books, reading the comic books. So he had gone when this car drove in.

Cleaning up after a car drives into Hall’s Pharmacy, 1966. (Courtesy of Sharlene Hall)

It was a shocking thing because it just crashed and went through the window and hit the first aisle. And all the merchandise and the broken glass – it was awful. But fortunately, nobody was hurt.”

Hall’s Pharmacy was a family business. Sharlene “started doing the books for our store and then I paid the bills. And I was the janitor and the stock keeper. Whatever needed to be done needed to be done. I could help when the kids were in school already. And then, when my friend opened her store in 1977, I went to work for Emily Lee Sportswear in Laurel Village selling clothes. I helped at the store a couple of days a week for her and then a couple of days a week at our store.”

HALL’S PHARMACY EXPANDS

At the time the Halls were in business, San Francisco was filled with independent family-owned pharmacies that later succumbed to large chains. Sharlene remembers, “As they retired or if they went out of business, we acquired some of their clients and their prescriptions. We did buy out Family Pharmacy, and I think, it was the old Sea Cliff.” Family Pharmacy was located at 5851 Geary Boulevard; Sea Cliff Pharmacy at 301 28th Avenue.

“The landlord at 2300 Clement was a nice old Greek guy, and rents at that time were pretty good. They were very manageable, didn’t have any problems,” Sharlene describes. “And then he sold to somebody else and that somebody else kept raising the rents all the time. And when we wanted to remodel the store, the landlord said, ‘Yeah, sure. You can remodel, but you know, your rent is still going to go high, go up every year and I’m not going to let you have any allowances or anything that you’re improving the property.’ And what ticked us off was that they lived upstairs, and when their kitchen leaked, they sent the son down with a coffee can and wires to hang onto the pipe so that it would catch the leaks that were going into our store. So, when the opportunity came that the Bayview owner wanted to retire…we talked to the owner there and he gave us a long lease with a good rent.”

The Bayview Pharmacy was located at 6157 Geary Boulevard at 26th Avenue. Hall’s Pharmacy “moved in 1988 and remodeled. But during the remodeling, it was when we found out that there was a loft above the pharmacy, the prescription department. And we’re just kind of sitting on a couple of posts that weren’t even really nailed in. So that was fixed… We finished remodeling in June, had ‘grand opening celebration’ and enjoyed the new store and having lunch/dinner from KIRIN restaurant next door for delicious food!” Sharlene continues, “Then October 17, 1989 – the store was shaken

up by the Loma Prieta earthquake – we were so grateful that the prescription area was safe and sound – no unstable loft overhead!...Otherwise, we would have been dead…We sustained some minimal damage to window cracks and some falling stock from shelves, but were grateful for being okay.”

Sharlene shares that “Al was a very popular pharmacist. And he volunteered to teach pharmacy school students up at UCSF for gosh, over 40 years. He would teach what they call the OTC classes, over the counter. First year students, you know, and he was in that for a long, long time.” Al was president of the Park Presidio Lions Club (Sharlene still has his gavel), a community service organization that sponsored programs benefiting neighborhood residents, such as free diabetes testing and raising funds for eyeglasses.

Al was also a founding member of the Clement Street Merchants Association. Sharlene recalls that “Merchants associations were really hard to get everybody to be active in it. When we started ours, there were just a small handful of us that participated in them. And then when we heard that Lower Clement had started theirs, they had a very hard time getting people to be active because they were all busy running their stores and they didn’t have time. But we managed to do fairly well for a few years and then it got hard for us, too.”

Al and Sharlene Hall inside their pharmacy at 6157 Geary Boulevard. (Courtesy of Sharlene Hall)

“One of his main rules is to look up, make eye contact with a customer coming through the door, and call them by name.”

The Halls’s stature within the community merited a cover story in the June 1996 Richmond ReView titled “A taste of the right medicine: Hall’s Pharmacy celebrates 30th anniversary in Richmond” that merits quoting at length. The pharmacy carried everything, “from wheelchairs to calamine lotion,” and it was known for “old fashioned, specialized service. If someone newly diagnosed with diabetes comes into the store, Al takes time out with them, in a special room he’s set aside, to take their blood pressure and explain the process of monitoring their blood sugar levels. The same goes for…anyone else who needs a little clarification of their medical needs.” The Halls also offered a “‘brown bag’ service, whereby elderly patients can bring in all their medications in one bag.” Al would determine if they should be worried about conflicting treatments and then call their physicians to fix the problem.

Sharlene spoke of their connections with customers. “Part of what I like about it is people are not just customers here. They’re like friends and family. We go to their funerals, to their weddings and anniversaries. If I were only in this for the bucks, I’d have been gone long ago.”4

By this time, the Halls had one of the oldest businesses in the neighborhood and one of only four independent pharmacies left in the Richmond. But Al saw the writing on the wall. “The Halls plan to keep their doors open for as long as possible, but stiff competition from nearby chain stores and new pressures from insurance companies are making it increasingly difficult.”5 Dusty Mahoney, a customer interviewed for the article, lamented the lack of personal attention from pharmacists at Walgreens and the fact that the neighborhood no longer had independent pharmacies that were open on Sundays or

in the evenings. When asked about the fate of his customers if all independent pharmacies closed, Al said, “They’d lose a friend in the health care business.”6

Sharlene shares that “Doing business as an independent pharmacy became more challenging as big chain stores, mail order, and big box pharmacies opened up all over – then health insurance and Medicare rules and cutbacks began to limit payments for services due. Additional rules and regulations created more paperwork so staying after store-closing hours was becoming the norm. Now, dinner-time was about 8:00pm or when/whenever you could find a parking space near any restaurant!”

Hall’s Pharmacy closed in 1998. “It was the beginning of a lot of independents closing and going to either Walgreens or Rite Aid or Safeway,” Sharlene describes. “Safeway offered to buy our prescriptions and offered him [Al] a job there so that he would continue.” Al worked at the Safeway on La Playa Street. “They promised Al he would continue being there for our customers. Unfortunately, that didn’t occur for long – he got transferred to serving in the East Bay…He was moved back to SF and served at the Potrero store where he worked understaffed in a very busy situation. He went to work for Walgreens in 2000, was in on opening the new Mill Valley store in 2003, and retired in 2012.”

In 1996, Al said “the reason I wanted my own pharmacy to begin with was I didn’t want somebody else telling me what to do.”7 After retiring, he continued to teach at UCSF and volunteer with Cameron House in the Bilingual Afterschool Program. Sharlene remembers, “He enjoyed his retirement years developing culinary skills and entertaining friends and family.” Al died on March 19, 2020. His obituary describes him as “‘Uncle Al’ to all the Spruce St. kids, extended church family kids and young people,” and he and Sharlene are noted as “leaders, teachers and elders of the Session” at the Presbyterian Church in Chinatown.8

The Hall’s Pharmacy at 6157 Geary cycled through several businesses from GTC Wireless to Café Euro, and is now Café Enchanted. Which feels appropriate, since the Halls were the lifeblood of this neighborhood pharmacy. In 1996, Sharlene said their customers came to Hall’s Pharmacy because they liked Al. “He’s trusting, and honest, and we try to be open and friendly to all kinds of people. One of his main rules is to look up, make eye contact with a customer coming through the door, and call them by name.”9

1. “A taste of the right medicine: Hall’s Pharmacy celebrates 30th anniversary in Richmond,” Richmond ReView, June 1996. 2. Ibid 3. “Alfred Hall Obituary,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2020. 4. “Hall’s Pharmacy celebrates 30th anniversary,” Richmond ReView, June 1996.

Ibid

Ibid

Ibid 8. “Alfred Hall Obituary,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 2020. 9. “Hall’s Pharmacy celebrates 30th anniversary,” Richmond ReView, June 1996.

Closing sale at Hall’s Pharmacy, 1998. (Courtesy of Sharlene Hall)

A LAke Worthy of No other NAme

By ANgus mAcfArLANe

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The October 21, 2022 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Golden Gate Park’s Stow Lake is named after a vicious anti-Semite, William W. Stow, and needs to be renamed. Locales and features of Golden Gate Park honor benefactors, politicians, and historical figures, but none recognize the park’s unsung heroes: the forgotten working men who toiled in anonymity for over 150 years to create and maintain our civic oasis. I would like to correct that omission and nominate Patrick Quigley for consideration of having a lake that he created be named in his honor.

Stow Lake and Strawberry Hill with Sweeny Observatory on top, circa 1893. (Photo by Isaiah West Taber, Marilyn Blaisdell Collection; courtesy of a Private Collector /

In 1872, Golden Gate Park existed mainly on paper. By 1912 it was a civic treasure. Hundreds, even thousands of men worked in the park during that 40-year span to raise an urban Garden of Eden from the desert sand, but only one man worked for the entire four decades to create this miracle: Patrick Quigley.

Who was Patrick Quigley? Born in Ireland, he and his wife, Mary, immigrated to the United States in 1848. They resided in Mariposa County for a number of years in the late 1850s and early 1860s, where five of their children were born. Around 1871-72, Patrick was hired as one of the earliest employees of the newly created (on paper) Golden Gate Park. The 1872 city directory lists him as “Laborer, Golden Gate Park.” The next year Patrick is listed as “Foreman Teamster Golden Gate Park,” a position he held until his death in 1912. Being the head “pick and shovel guy,” Patrick supervised all the labor that went into the creation and maintenance of San Francisco’s world-famous urban oasis.

Park employees worked nine-hour days, six days a week. A bell announced the start and end of the working day.

The back-aching manual labor in those days was the same as it had been 4,000 years earlier when the pyramids were built: exclusively man- and beast-power. Additionally, park employees were Park Police Officers who enforced the laws, rules, and regulations of the park at no additional pay. According to Patrick’s obituary, he and five other employees engaged in a six-week siege (involving shotgun battles) to evict squatters from Buena Vista Park in the early 1870s.

The importance of Patrick’s position is evident in his having a city-provided home in the park, on a two-acre triangle of land bounded by today’s Lincoln Way, Kezar Drive, and the northern extension of Arguello Boulevard into the park. Patrick and Mary raised a family of nine children on their Golden Gate Park plot of land. (A tenth child, Katy, died in infancy in 1875.)

When the Quigleys arrived, their nearest “neighbor” was the California Powder Works – a dynamite factory – two blocks away at approximately today’s 3rd Avenue and Irving Street. A mile to the south was the Alms House with its 300 “inmates.”

Other “neighbors” were Cornelius Reynolds and his hog ranch two-thirds of a mile to the west at today’s 14th Avenue and

Enlargement of southeast corner of Golden Gate Park showing the Quigley’s land, circa 1892. Marilyn Blaisdell Collection; courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp37.00498)

Stanyan Street

quigley home lincoln way

Lincoln Way, and a scattering of taverns which provided liquid refreshment (and perhaps some courage) to the teamsters who plied the Central Macadamized Toll Road, also known as the Powder House Road. On their outbound journey, they carried raw materials to the California Powder Works and The Giant Works, another dynamite factory on today’s 19th Avenue and Kirkham Street. On their return trip they carried the highly volatile finished explosives to the San Francisco wharves for shipment throughout California. The road, the teamsters, and the explosives passed right by the Quigley home.

Throughout the 1870s, the Quigley kids passed the California Powder Works on their quarter-mile journey to Laguna Honda School, a two-room building at today’s 7th Avenue and Irving Street. This educational outpost served the few families south of the Presidio, west of Divisadero Street, east of the ocean, and north of Sloat Boulevard. Although the dynamite factories had unenviable safety records, a constant hardship for the Quigleys was the wind, which blew unabated from the ocean, rearranging the sand. Laguna Honda School often found the sand beneath its foundation being eroded away, threatening to topple the building.

But the wind carried something even more troublesome than sand. The Quigleys lived downwind of Reynolds’s hog ranch. The prevailing westerlies’ deliveries of the noxious byproducts of Reynold’s stock must have been unbearable for the Quigleys. Probably so unbearable that, within two years of the Quigley’s arrival, Reynolds was a park employee, and the hogs were gone.

By 1890, nearly two decades after the Quigleys settled into their home (and while Golden Gate Park was coming to fruition), the area south of the park from Stanyan Street to the ocean was still so thinly populated that there were only 166 registered voters (men over 21). 135 of those were Alms House inmates. Of the 31 non-inmate voters that year, five were Patrick Quigley and his four adult sons.

The Quigleys were true San Francisco pioneers, daily confronting the challenges of isolation, sand, wind, and fog at the western limit of settlement in San Francisco. Undoubtedly, they were self-sufficient with a vegetable garden and livestock, likely including chickens, milk cows, and probably pigs and goats. Their city-provided home lacked indoor plumbing and

View southeast from Strawberry Hill showing Cornelius Reynolds’s home, circa 1886. (Photo by Turrill & Miller; courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp4.1613)

Stow Lake’s Huntington Falls under construction, 1893. (Marilyn Blaisdell Collection; courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp37.03365)

water came from a well. And yet there was Golden Gate Park – Patrick’s Park – in the midst of this desert.

In February 1891, Thomas Sweeney announced his intention to build a “panorama” on top of Strawberry Hill. Three months later, the Park Commissioners (including President W.W. Stow) expressed a desire to create a lake “on the east side of Strawberry Hill…as large in area as two square blocks.”1 Sweeney’s panorama was dedicated on September 19, 1891. The lake at the base of Strawberry Hill would expand to encircle the hill, going through name changes (“Strawberry Lake,” “Strawberry Hill Lake”) before being completed in May 1893. The first reference to “Stow Lake” was in the August 28, 1893 issue of the San Francisco Examiner.

A quarter century after the Quigleys put down their roots in the area, the San Francisco Call published a lengthy article in its May 23, 1897 edition, entitled “A Veritable Desert in the City of San Francisco.” It described the soul-crushing emptiness at the Quigley’s back door: “There is no more desolate spot on earth than the heart of this region. Sand mountain after sand mountain rise on all sides and stretch away in the distance… The lonesomeness of many parts of this stretch of country is appalling. There is nothing for the mind to grasp.”

In their pioneer homestead surrounded by sand and loneliness, Patrick and Mary raised six boys and three girls. James (the oldest) and Charles (the second oldest) worked in the park. John became a medical doctor with an office at Page and Cole Streets. George became a druggist in 1897. His pharmacy was at Waller and Clayton Streets, one block south of Haight Street, making him the first drug dealer in the Haight Ashbury.

Of the six Quigley boys, only James and John married, but neither had children. James married Julia Herzo, the owner of the historic Little Shamrock bar, still extant on Lincoln Way and 9th Avenue. The name “J.P. Quigley” appears in turn-ofthe-century photos of the bar’s sign. Two of the three Quigley girls married and had children. It was up to them to preserve the Quigley line, though not the name.

The famous story of Golden Gate Park Superintendent John McLaren reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 in 1906 and refusing to retire is a part of the park’s folklore. But McLaren was outdone by Patrick, who turned 60 in 1888 and remained on the job for another 24 years beyond the “mandatory retirement age,” working into his 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. This is yet another indication of Patrick’s immeasurable value to the park.

The creation myth of Golden Gate Park has John McLaren actually creating the park. But the truth is that for a decade and a half, Patrick Quigley literally laid the foundation of the park that would become synonymous with John McLaren, “the Little Scotsman.” Before McLaren arrived, Patrick served under four previous Superintendents: William Hammond Hall (1871-1876); William Bond Prichard (1876-1881); F.P.

Hennessey (1881-1882); and John McEwen (1882-1887).

McLaren was the administrator, while Patrick Quigley (“the Big Irishman,” as I envision him) was the implementor – the one who got things done. For 40 years the Big Irishman worked his nine-hour days, six days a week, overseeing projects that still exist today. When Patrick began working in 1872, the Park was barely a quarter of the size it is now. With his brigade of pick-and-shovel lads toiling away, in his lifetime Patrick saw the realization of a city’s dream. How proud he must have been. Stow Lake, the Stadium (Polo Field), the Great Highway, and other projects that we take for granted today were completed under his leadership.

The only public recognition for Patrick Quigley’s life-long dedication to Golden Gate Park and his contributions to the citizens of San Francisco came in his obituary in the San Francisco Examiner of November 16, 1912. Patrick died on November 12 from an unspecified injury sustained two weeks prior. As a token of their appreciation for his decades of service, the Park Commission awarded Patrick’s family a paycheck for the remainder of the month of November.

120 years ago, the name Quigley was prominent in the Inner Sunset, Haight Ashbury, and Golden Gate Park. A Quigley was the tavern owner of the Little Shamrock, a popular Inner Sunset drinking establishment. Quigleys provided medical and pharmaceutical services to the Inner Sunset and Haight Ashbury neighborhoods. The Quigleys were a venerable pioneer family, the earliest residents of the Inner Sunset. At one time, three Quigleys worked in Golden Gate Park. Now, sadly, reference to the name Quigley draws blank stares.

110 years after his death, we can finally give Patrick, “the Big Irishman,” the long-overdue recognition and recompense he truly deserves – his name on a feature of his beloved park in which he lived, worked, and died: Lake Quigley, the largest lake in Golden Gate Park. A legacy that will honor a true working-class hero, and all the other park workers past, present, and future.

1. “A Lake For The Park,” San Francisco Examiner, May 22, 1891.

Little Shamrock sign at the turn of the 20th century. (Image courtesy of Saeed Ghazi)

Allen & Company

By Richard Brandi

Harry B. Allen of Allen & Company was a major builder responsible for three residential parks in San Francisco, from the most prestigious Sea Cliff, to the least known Windsor Terrace and Fourth Avenue and Fulton tract. He also was a prominent member of the real estate profession and served as president of the San Francisco Real Estate and the California Real Estate Associations.

Harry Beckwith Allen was born on November 7, 1889, to Gertrude (Beckwith) and David H. Allen. His father was in the liquor business, but soon after the 1906 earthquake and fire he entered the real estate business. One of his father’s rental ads said, “For rent…a well and completely furnished flat, including piano, silverware, bed and table linen; ready for immediate occupancy; a bargain and must be seen to be appreciated; not damaged by earthquake; also furnished houses and rooms and office suitable for doctor or dentist with separate entrance; running hot and cold water.”1 In 1910, twenty-one-year-old Harry and his brother Laurence had founded Allen & Co with their father.

Windsor Terrace

Harry Allen’s first foray into the residence park market was Windsor Terrace, launched in 1914. Windsor Terrace is a puzzle to many people who see the entrance pillars but have no idea what they signify. This small tract was part of the

Sunset District grid. Windsor Terrace is located between Lawton and Moraga Streets, on both sides of Eighth Avenue and the east side of Ninth Avenue. The land rises noticeably Lawton to Moraga. And Eighth Avenue borders the edge of a canyon. Nearby ran the No. 6 streetcar that went downtown.

To set off the tract, Allen constructed red brick pillars at Lawton and Moraga Streets. He built an alley behind the houses to park automobiles and to avoid cutting driveways into front yards. The houses and sidewalks on the city block between Eighth and Ninth Avenues sit several feet higher than the street, and red brick stairs lead from the sidewalk to the street.

Allen built houses to suit buyers and also built speculative houses using the services of the distinguished architect, Alfred Farr. Architect Farr might have designed at least ten houses in the tract. The earliest announcement advertising the tract implies that Alfred Farr would design all the houses

in the English style: “The English scheme of arrangement and architecture has been carried out in every detail, with multistone and brick gateways, red brick streets, terraced walks and trees and shrubs to beautify the terrace.”2 Advertisements for the houses in Windsor Terrace listed servants’ rooms, garages, wood floors, tiled bathrooms, unobstructed views, and sleeping decks.

In 1916, with only sixteen houses built on the eighty-two lots, Allen took on a much more ambitious project in Sea Cliff.

Sea Cliff

Although San Francisco is a city surrounded by water on three sides, Sea Cliff (sometimes Seacliff) is the only place where houses are located right on the edge of the water, making it an extraordinary location for a residence park.

The current Sea Cliff area was part of the Baker Tract. On June 1, 1874, Maria Baker Batchelder (widow of Edwin Dickinson Baker) mortgaged the tract to John Brickell. Batchelder defaulted on taxes, giving Brickell the right to foreclose. By the 1890s, Brickell had acquired the Baker Tract after approximately twenty years of court battles. The tract

Windsor Terrace in 1921 with few houses built. The road at the bottom of the hill is 7th Avenue which becomes Laguna Honda Boulevard (to the left). Visible halfway up the hill is the rear driveway for cars. Lawton Street runs up the hill. (Photo by Horace Chaffee, SF Department of Public Works; courtesy of a Private Collector / wnp26.001)

Entrance pillars at 8th Avenue and Lawton. (Courtesy of Richard Brandi)

retained the name Baker and the cove of a popular bathing spot was called Baker Beach. The John Brickell Company had extensive land holdings in San Francisco and did not develop its remote holdings during the nineteenth century. As a result, the area around Sea Cliff remained sand dunes and thickets for a long time.

The original plan was to install gates at four streets—25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th Avenues where they cross El Camino del Mar—to create an exclusive residence park similar to Presidio Terrace. This would have cut off public access to Baker Beach. The Richmond Federation of Improvement Clubs opposed the move, arguing that while the streets were not officially dedicated to the city, people had used them for decades to reach the beach. Opponents wanted the city to condemn Brickell’s land, dedicate it for public use, buy a strip of land along the buff, and link it with Lincoln Park. Although the city did not do any of these things, Brickell relented, and only pillars, not fenced gates, were used to mark the tract. Sea Cliff has rough-cut stone pillars as gateway features to define the entrances to Sea Cliff along the boundaries that intersect with the broader street system. Access to Baker Beach remains open.

In 1913, the Brickell Company commissioned William B. Hoag to survey and record Sea Cliff Subdivision #1, which covered the parcels between 25th and 27th Avenues, north of West Clay Street (El Camino Del Mar) overlooking the Golden Gate and the Marin Headlands. By 1916, Allen and Company was managing the development of Sea Cliff as exclusive sales agents. A second subdivision opened, bounded by California Street, McLaren Avenue, Lake Street, and 28th and 29th Avenues. This section contained a group of moderately priced homes for the “average buyer.”3 In 1923, a third subdivision opened north of El Camino Del Mar, Sea Cliff Avenue to the west and north, and 27th Avenue to the east. A large building program on Lake Street from 30th Avenue to El Camino Del

Mar was underway by 1926. The fourth and last subdivision was completed in 1928.

The houses throughout Sea Cliff are set back from the street to create a band of shallow front yards along both sides of the street. Six-foot-wide concrete sidewalks, with rectangular planting strips, are located between the front yards and the streets. Most of the blocks have internal service roads or alleys that provides access to the garages. The blocks along the northern and western boundaries lack the internal road system and have driveways in front of the houses.

Sea Cliff incorporates the existing grid street pattern system around the outer southern edges and then becomes more curvilinear in the interior and along the seaside portions, where the topography is more varied. This curvilinear arrangement distinguishes the arrangement of Sea Cliff streets and lots from the surrounding outer Richmond neighborhood. In 1916, Allen & Company took over the tract, and he later claimed to have built 500 houses.

To preserve as much of the marine view as possible, Hoag terraced parts of Sea Cliff (e.g., along the 600 block of El Camino Del Mar) and sited roads to preserve marine views. Hoag claimed to have graded thousands of cubic yards of sand in order to endow as many lots as possible with a marine view. Although some sources credit Mark Daniels for the roads or landscaping in Sea Cliff, his only known work occurred in 1915 when he designed a terraced garden down the seaside cliffs of the Doble residence.

Sea Cliff had the advantages of being close to transportation and the beach. Public transportation was provided by the Municipal Railway’s C-line streetcar along California Street and the Market Street Railway’s Sutter and Clement Street line. The John Brickell Company donated an 80-foot-wide strip of land to build El Camino Del Mar Boulevard, linking the Presidio with Lincoln Park through Sea Cliff.

The idea of building this boulevard had many proponents. It is shown on Daniel Burnham’s Plan in 1905. In the 1910s the superintendent of city parks envisioned a scenic boulevard that would connect the site of the upcoming Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE)—in today’s Marina District— with Ocean Beach. The Richmond Federation of Improvement Clubs wanted Lake Street, which ended at 33rd Avenue, to be cut through to Lincoln Park to create a scenic drive. City Engineer Michael O’Shaughnessy was another proponent of building a scenic boulevard. All parties cooperated by creating the El Camino Del Mar that also became the terminus of the Lincoln Highway. Construction began in 1915, and the road was extended to Sutro Heights in 1924. Landslides plagued the road for decades, and it was closed in the 1950s.

Although Sea Cliff did not have an official tract architect, Carl Bertz designed so many houses that advertisements credited him for creating the “spirit of Sea Cliff.” Bertz began working

Former tract office on the corner of 4th Avenue and Fulton Street. (Courtesy of Richard Brandi)

with John Brickell in 1918 and shortly thereafter joined forces with Harry B. Allen.

Sea Cliff’s proximity to the Golden Gate and the ability to bathe in the ocean was stressed in early advertising. A sandy beach running from the Presidio runs to Lincoln Park. Sea Cliff is on a bluff and provides direct access to China Beach, which was a popular swimming spot for decades. (China Beach takes its name from Chinese fisherman who were thought to have worked there in the 1800s, although there is little evidence that they did.) In 1933, the State of California bought the beach and named it after former mayor James D. Phelan, who donated $50,000 for the purchase. In 1954, a concrete drive was constructed from Sea Cliff to a city-owned beach house. Access to the beach is through the streets in Sea Cliff. Sea Cliff has become home to many multimillionaires who share the streets of Sea Cliff with hundreds of beach goers who drive past mansions on the way to the beach.

Fourth and Fulton Street Tract

The Fourth and Fulton tract is unrecognizable as a residence park. In 1921, with Sea Cliff well underway, Allen launched this small restricted tract in the Richmond District on the existing street grid bordering Golden Gate Park. It has modest twostory houses designed by Bertz. He used a standardized floor plan with either an “English” entrance (i.e., vestibule) or an exterior stairway. Except at the block corners, the houses are attached and are nearly identical inside, although Bertz varied their façades to prevent monotony. Attached houses are unusual in residence parks.

The Fourth and Fulton tract can be seen as an attempt by Allen to capitalize on his reputation with Sea Cliff and construct houses that were modestly priced (and perhaps easier to

sell) when inflation and other costs were at their peak. The standard design played to Allen’s advantage. By the early 1920s, Allen & Company was a large real estate and building company employing twenty-nine salesmen, an architectural department, and one hundred construction workers. In an article for The National Real Estate Journal, Harry Allen said:

It is always gratifying to see one’s business enterprise grow, and we take added pleasure in our growth because we realize that such has been possible only because we have been able to serve the community…We have sought to learn and minister to the needs of San Francisco from the standpoint of new subdivisions and homes, and we have not hesitated to pioneer in this regard when such seemed necessary.4

In 1935, with mature projects like Windsor Terrace, 4th and Fulton, and Sea Cliff, Allen bought the Belvedere Land Company and began to development Belvedere and its lagoon in Marin County, a project that would take some twenty years to complete. Nonetheless, Allen considered Sea Cliff to be his personal monument.

This article is excerpted and condensed from Chapter 9 of “Garden Neighborhoods of San Francisco” by Richard Brandi, 2021, and provided courtesy of McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers.

1. Railroad Gazetteer, 19:6, 1881.

2. “Windsor Terrace Beautiful Park: Elevated Tract in Sunset Is Distinguished by Artistic Plan and Treatment,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 28, 1914.

3. Homes and Grounds, October 1916, 293–313.

4. “How Allen and Company Have Developed ‘Sea Cliff,’” The National Real Estate Journal, Vol. 23, 1922.

Lake Street and El Camino Del Mar are divided into upper and lower lanes separated by 14-foot-wide landscaped medians. The medians have red brick retaining walls and public stairs that link the upper and lower lanes. (Courtesy of Richard Brandi)

Inside the Outside Lands

In looking for a metaphor to describe all the work we do at Western Neighborhoods Project, the most vivid one that comes to mind isn’t elegant but is definitely accurate: the seasoned waitress at your favorite breakfast dive during the morning rush. We do a lot for a one (now two!) employee organization. But all that work isn’t done by one or two people – it’s the sum of thousands of volunteer hours from members of our extended family. And, in our annual tradition, the last issue of the year is where we make space for as many of them as we can.

The Museum at The Cliff was an astounding success, welcoming almost 14,500 visitors through its doors from October 23, 2021 to October 15, 2022. That is a wild accomplishment for an incredibly small nonprofit. None of it would have happened without John Lindsey of The Great Highway gallery and Alexandra Mitchell of ACT Art Conservation, who have been by our side every step of the way.

The old Cliff House Restaurant and Gift Shop came to life with projections, light, and sound, thanks to Rick Bellamy, Andrew Roth, and Ben Wood. Exhibit installation and deinstallation would have been impossible without the services of Atthowe Fine Art, Ryan Butterfield, Krissy Kenny and her crew, Minnesota Street Project, and Harvey Newman. Special thanks to Judi Leff and Alex Mitchell, who paid to have our beautiful porcelain ladies professionally installed. Chrissy Huhn, Yameen, and Joey Yee generously documented the exhibitions with their professional lenses. And finally, a shoutout to the other Andrew Roth, who is cataloging one of our most complex Cliff House acquisitions: the Whitney Scrapbooks.

We began the year with student support from Joe Grossblatt, who we shared with Great Highway gallery, allowing him to work on our collaborative exhibitions and public programs in a for-profit gallery setting but also from a nonprofit museum perspective. We ended the year with Lindsey Hanson, who stepped into The Museum at The Cliff with special touches like the WNP bear buttons along with all-around support for

our exhibition and education efforts. Both of these students, from the Museum Studies program at San Francisco State, were paid a stipend thanks to your generosity with our 2021 Winter Appeal.

A quiet but stalwart team held down the OpenSFHistory fort as we focused on The Museum at The Cliff this year. Emiliano Echeverria, Greg Gaar, David Gallagher, Judy Hitzman, John Martini, and Art Siegel fielded questions, corrected captions, kept scanning, and, in so many ways, carried the torch onward. Similar time was spent on Cliffhouseproject. com by its founder Gary Stark, who generously transferred his incredible resource to us and continues to be part of its new chapter as a program of Western Neighborhoods Project.

So much of the content you love is created by volunteers. The “Outside Lands San Francisco” podcast wouldn’t happen without Michael Lange, Arnold Woods, our sound engineer Ian Hadley, and frequent contributors like David Friedlander Frank Dunnigan generously writes up two columns each month for our websites. And this very magazine comes together thanks to our intrepid graphic designer Laura Macias. Thank you to all the authors who contributed articles this past year, but especially Paul Judge, Margaret Ostermann, and Charlie the History Poodle for their continuous work on Where in West S.F.? The end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 will bring some change to how WNP looks and feels online; we have Michelle Forshner and John Lindsey to thank for these efforts.

Last but not least, we’re lucky to have a Board of Directors that donate their time and expertise to keep us on target. Ed Anderson, Eva Laflamme, Denise LaPointe, Nicole Smahlik, Vivian Tong, Carissa Tonner, Kyrie Whitsett, and Arnold Woods continue to shape our thriving nonprofit, while outgoing directors Ed Franklin, Matt Nichols, Dion Roberts, and Karim Salgado have left an indelible imprint on WNP.

Everyone mentioned here, and so many more, have helped us metaphorically get food on the table. Thank you for helping us serve piping-hot history, made to order.

Volunteers were recognized for their contributions at this year’s gala. (Courtesy of Jim Jenkins)

We kept The Museum at The Cliff doors open thanks to a small but dedicated army of volunteers:

Ginger Ashworth

Josh Borkowski

Erik Butterfield

Barbara Cannella

Shraddha Chaplot

Elizabeth Dalton

Deb Denison

Louise Diskerud

Eleanor Farrell

Thomas Gille Lisa Greenberg

Sarah Grimm

Joe Grossblatt

Christina Gutterman

Lindsey Hanson

Nicolette Heaphy

Amanda Heauser-Caires

Anne and Breck Hitz

Chrissy Huhn

Kathryn Hyde

Diane Janakes-Zasada

Jim Jenkins

Susanna Klebaner

Mary Jean Koontz

Athena Kyle RaeAnne Lee

Judi Leff

Bao Li

Kristin and Molly Lindsey Gail MacGowan

Eric Mar

Christine Miller

Maria Morrison

Jim Neilly

Lauren O’Leary

Margaret Ostermann

Peter Peacock

Kristine Poggioli

Lorna Reed

Marlena Ryan Ken Spielman

Lorri Ungaretti

Sonia Wolf

Peter Wong Pam Wright

Crowd of people gathered around for the Jack Loreen Buried Alive attraction, Great Highway and Balboa Street, June 1935. (Laurie Hollings Photo Album; James R. Smith Collection / wnp66.341)

You may already be in the know about our Winter Appeal. But just in case you missed it! We are asking for your help to keep our history work happening with a donation to WNP.

When we look back on 2022, it’s astounding to see how much we accomplished together:

• Welcomed over 14,000 visitors to The Museum at The Cliff, a free, collaborative, and kid-friendly exhibition in the former Cliff House Restaurant and Gift Shop

• Released over 35 new episodes (and counting!) of our podcast, “Outside Lands San Francisco”

• Hosted over 25 public programs, in-person and online

• Shared stories from the “Chinese in the Richmond” project in this magazine and online

We work hard to serve you history however and wherever you want it. Making a donation now sets our nonprofit up with the financial security we need to focus more on history and less on fundraising as we enter 2023. Help us by making a tax-deductible donation today.

• Donations of $75 or more are eligible to receive an enamel Trad’r Sam pin created by our friends, San Francisco Neon.

• Donations of $125 or more are eligible to receive an authentic Cliff House coffee mug saved from auction last year.

YES, you can make a difference and get an awesome San Francisco souvenir! Only one souvenir per donation while supplies last. We cannot guarantee delivery before the holidays. You can send us a check in the enclosed envelope and include the form below (you have our permission to deface this magazine for a good cause).

Thank you so much for helping us navigate the turbulence of these past pandemic years, and for ensuring that WNP glides into 2023 with clear skies ahead.

I qualify for a souvenir!

I would like a pin mug neither My check payable to “Western Neighborhoods Project” for “2022 Winter Appeal” is enclosed